PICTURE MENU The Picture menu lets you save,load,and print your pictures,as well as allowing you to make various global changes to the color palette,screen resolution,and page format. The Picture menu contains the following menu items: LOAD Displays the Load Picture requester. To load a file from disk: Click the button for the drive you want to load from(for example,df1:). Point to the name of the file you want to load,click with the left button,and then click Load.(If you click a subdirectory name you will see all the files in that subdirectory.) When you load a picture,the loaded picture replaces any existing picture. If you have multiple frames,the loaded picture replaces the current frame. Clicking the listing "/Parent(DIR)" moves you into the parent directory in which the curent subdirectory resides,which may be the root directory. If you swap disks while the Load Picture requester is displayed,DeluxePaint read the new disk's directory but does not display it until you click the drive button. If there are more items in the directory but does not display it until you click the drive button. If there are more items in the directory than there is room in the window,you can scroll through the directory by clicking the up and down arrow keys,as appropriate,or by dragging the scroll box up and down. Click Load to load the selected file,or Cancel if you change your mind. LOAD PICTURE SPECIFY DRIVE DRAWER LO-RES FILE DF0: DF1: RAM: # OF FRAMES: 1 LOAD CANCEL FIGURE 9.14 Load Picture requester The # of Frames edit field near the bottom of the requester lets you load multiple pictures at one time as frames of an animation. The pictures must all be in the same format. If you already have animation frames,those frames are discarded and DeluxePaint creates new frames as you load.(If you want to add picutes to your animation without discarding it,you must load the picture one at a time.)DeluxePaint loads the pictures starting with the picture you selected in the requester and continuing alphabetically down the listing to load the number of frames you requested. This option basically does the reverse operation of the Frames:_to_fields in the Save Picture requester. SAVE Displays the Save Picture requester. This requester works almost identically to the Load Picture requester,except that it saves the file to disk rather than loading it. To save a picture: Choose Save from the Picture menu. In the Save Picture requester,click on a disk button(df0:,df1:,ram:,etc.)to choose the disk you want to save to. Click on the subdirectory you selected appear in the Drawer edit field.)Click in the File edit field and type a name for your picture. Finally,click Save to save the file. You can save in a particular subdirectory by clicking in the Drawer gadget and typing in the subdirectory name,or by clicking the subdirectory name directly from the displayed file names. When you type in either the Drawer or File edit fields,you can erase the existing type by clicking at the end of the existing name and Backspacing,or by clicking at the beginning of the name and Deleting. You can move over the text without deleting it by using the arrow keys. You can save a picture under an existing file name by clicking that file name in the file listing,or you can enter a new file name(up to 29 characters long) by clicking the File edit field and typing the name. Whenever you save a picture under an existing name,DeluxePaint displays a requester for you to confirm that you want to overwrite the existing file. Pictures are saved and reloaded with all their attributes,such as palettes, stencils and perspective information. Pictures are saved and reloaded with all their attributes,such as palettes, stencils and perspective information. SAVE PICTURE SPECIFY DRIVE DRAWER LO-RES FILE DF0: DF1: RAM: SAVE CANCEL FIGURE 9.15 Save Picture requester If you have multiple frames when you display the Save Picture requester,the bottom portion of the requester will contain Frames edit fields for you to specify which frames of your animation you want to save. You enter a file name and specify a drawer just as you would when saving a single picture. When you click Save,the frames are saved as separate pictures with a number added to the end of the file name. For example,if you enter 5 to 10 as the frames you want to save,the frames are saved as Filename005 through Filename010. DELETE Displays the Delete File requester,allowing you to delete a file from the disk without leaving the program. This function is useful if you find that your data disk is full and you need to delete a file before you can save your work. The Delete File requester works just like the Load and Save requesters described above. You can enter a file name by clicking that name in the requester window, or by typing the name directly into the File edit field. NOTE You can use this option to delete any kind of file on the disk,not just pictures. Thus,you can delete brushes,animations,etc. DELETE FILE SPECIFY DRIVE DRAWER LO-RES FILE DF0: DF1: RAM: DELETE CANCEL FIGURE 9.16 Delete File requester PRINT Displays the Print Picture requester. Before you start to print a picture,make sure you have selected the correct printer driver from Preferences,and that your printer is connected and turned on. See your Amiga Users Guide for information on printer preferences. PRINT PICTURE ASPECT: IMAGE:+- SHADE: B&W GREY COLOR PLACEMENT: % DOTS %WIDE:100 %HIGH:0 LINE FEEDS: 0 COPIES:1 FORM FEED: NO YES CANCEL EXIT PRINT FIGURE 9.17 Print Picture requester The Print Picture requester provides the following options: ASPECT:This lets you specify the orientation of the picture on the paper,either Normal,the default,or Sideways. Click the Up-arrow button for Normal or the Left-arrow button for Sideways. IMAGE:This lets you specify whether the printout will be a positive or negative image. Click the Plus button for positive or the Minus button for negative. SHADE:This lets you specify whether the printout will be in color,in shades of grey,or in black and white. Make sure the setting is appropriate for your printer. If you are using a single-color ribbon,click B&W. If you want to translate your image's colors into shades of grey,use the Grey setting. To print in full color,click Color. PLACEMENT:This option lets you specify whether the picture should be printed against the left margin of the page or centered on the page. %/DOTS:The % option lets you control the size of the printout by specifying the % width and % height of the printout paper. The Dots option lets you specify the size of the printout in terms of the actual printer pixels. If the % option is active then the following parameters can be specified: % Wide and % High: These let you change the aspect ratio(the ratio of height to width)of the picture by setting the percentages for each. The default values are 100% Wide and 0% High. 0% is a special case and tells the printer to maintain the same aspect ratio as the screen version of the picture. To change the aspect ratio,leave the % Wide at 100 and enter a new % High value. You can use this feature to compensate for elongated squares and circles that result when you change screen formats. If you just want to shrink the picture while maintaining the same aspect ration,change the % Wide value and leave the % High value at 0. To change either value,click the appropriate gadget,Backspace or Delete over the existing value,and type in the new one. If the Dots option is active you can set only the printout width and height in dots. LINE FEEDS:Lets you set the number of line feeds you want to insert after a picture is printed. This way you can easily print two pictures on the same page with a specified amount of space in between the pictures. COPIES:Lets you specify how many copies of the picture you want printed. FORM FEED:Lets you set whether or not you want the printer to move to the next sheet of paper before printing each image. This lets you easily print a single picture per sheet of paper. CANCEL if you don't want to print and don't want to save any new settings. Click Exit if you don't want to print,but want to save your settings to print later. Click Print to print the current picture,or once you start printing,you can stop at any time by pressing the Stop button that appears while printing is in progress. FLIP As its name implies,Flip lets you flip a picture about its x-ory-axis. If you have multiple frames,you can flip one frame,a range of frames,or all frames of your animation. The following secondary menu items are available under the Flip option: HORIZ Flips the current picture about the horizontal or x-axis. VERT Flips the current picture about the vertical or y-axis. CHANGE COLOR The Change Color option presents a secondary menu with options for manipulating the colors in your picture. PALETTE(Keyboard Equivalent:p) Displays the Color Palette requester. You can also display the Color Palette requester by clicking the Color Indicator(between the palette and the Toolbox) with the right mouse button. This is the master color control panel,which you use to adjust colors,create spreads of color,and define cycle ranges. You can move the Color Palette requester around on the screen by pointing to the bar at its top,pressing the left mouse button,and dragging it to the new location. COLOR PALETTE R G B H S V 15 12 8 4 0 SPREAD EX COPY RANGE: 1 2 3 4 5 6 SPEED CANCEL UNDO OK FIGURE 9.18 The Color Palette requester To select a color,use the left mouse button to click the color either in the requester or anywhere on the page(including the Palette at the bottom right of the screen). The selected color is displayed in the small box in the upper right area of the requester. Use the RGB(for Red,Green,and Blue)or HSV(for Hue, Saturation,and Value)sliders to change the color.(See Tutorial One in Chapter Six:Painting Tutorials for an explanation of color mixing in RGB or HSV.) The Copy button lets you copy a color from one position to another: Click the first color,click Copy,the click the position you want to copy into. The Ex button lets you exchange the position of two colors in the palette: Click the first color,click Ex,then click the second color. If you use Ex to rearrange the colors in your Palette,the resulting screen image will likely be in the wrong colors. You can correct this by choosing Change Color>Remap from the Picture menu.(Note that you should remap immediately after you change the color arrangement in the palette. If you modify the palette a second time without first remapping,you will not be able to remap to the original palette.) The Sread button helps you quickly create a spread of shades between two colors: Click the first color,click Spread,and then click the second color. DeluxePaint creates a uniform spread of colors,taking into account the beginning and ending shades and the number of colors in between. DEFINING RANGES You use the Range button to define ranges of color for the color cycling, gradient fill,Shade,and Blend features of DeluxePaint. Click one of the six numbered range buttons to choose the range number you are defining. Click the color you want at one end of the range,click Range,then click the color at the other end of the range. Once you have defined a range of colors,selecting any of the colors in the range selects the entire range for the features that use ranges. The Speed slider lets you control the speed of color cycling for each range. Drag the Speed slider to the left(slower)or to the right(faster). By holding the button down on the slider you can monitor the color cycling right on the page,even if Color Cycling is turned off. You can control the cycle direction for each range by clicking on the Cycle Direction Arrow at the bottom right of the Color Palette requester while that range is selected. This arrow also sets the direction of the range when it is used as a gradient. You can reverse the last change you made in the Color Palette requester by clicking Undo. USE BRUSH PALETTE When you load a brush from disk,DeluxePaint continues to use the current picture palette,even though it may be different from the one the brush was created with. Use Brush Palette switches to the brush palette,and includes any information about color cycling that was saved with the brush. If the newly loaded brush uses more colors than the current picture,Use Brush Palette switches to the brush palette and reduces the number of colors to that of the picture palette. It does so by recomputing the palette to match the original as closely as possible with fewer colors. After choosing Use Brush Palette,you can still revert to the original picture palette by using the Restore Palette command(see below). Compare Use Brush Palette with the Remap command in the Brush menu;this command lets you keep the current picture palette,but maps the brush to the picture palette to match the original brush palette as closely as possible. RESTORE PALETTE This option returns you to the palette you were using before the current palette. Thus,if you load a picture with a different palette,Restore Palette reverts to the palette in effect before the load. See Use Brush Palette,above, and Default Palette below. DEFAULT PALETTE The default palette is the palette DeluxePaint always uses when you first start the program. The Default Palette command replaces the current palette with the default palette. Note that the palette contains range and cycle speed information as well as the color settings,and all of these settings are replaced when you select Default Palette. CYCLE(Keyboard Equivalent:Tab) Toggles color cycling on/off. Color cycling uses the color ranges you define in the Color Palette requester.(See Palette,above). If a color is not included in any range,it does not cycle. See "Animation with Color Cycling" in Tutorial One of Chapter Six:Painting Tutorials. BG->FG Changes all pixels that use the current background color to use the current foreground color. This provides an easy method of changing colors globally--all pixels in the current background color in the picture are changed to the current foreground color. The change occurs on-screen only and does not affect the order of colors in the color palette. Undo does not reverse this change. BG<->FG Swaps all pixels in the current background color with the current foreground color. This is similar to the Bg->Fg option above,except that the change occurs in both directions. The change occurs on-screen only and does not affect the order of colors in the color palette. Like Bg->Fg,above,Undo does not reverse this change. REMAP When you create a picture,DeluxePaint "remembers" each color on the screen by remembering its location in the palette. If a picture on the screen was created with a palette other than the current palette(for example,if you have modified the palette since loading the picture),Remap finds the locations in the current palette of the colors it used in the original palette and "tells" the picture to look there for its colors. Bg->Fg and Bg<->Fg,above,are special cases of Remap. See also Remap in the Brush menu,below. Undo does not reverse this change. SPARE The Spare option presents a submenu with options that apply to the spare page feature in DeluxePaint. The following secondary options are available under the Spare option: SWAP(Keyboard Equivalent:j) Displays the spare page. When you first call it up,the spare page is the standard screen size. If you wish to use a larger page size on the spare page, you will need to make the appropriate selection from the Page Size option(see below). Note,however,that you can increase the size of a page only if you have sufficient memory available. Note also that a spare page uses up memory,even if there is nothing on it. COPY TO SPARE Copies the picture on the current page to the spare page. This lets you experiment with your picture on the spare page without fear of losing anything. If you do not have sufficient memory for a spare page,save the image to disk if you wish to experiement with it. If you copy to the spare from a page that is larger than then spare,only the visble portion of the page is copied. If you copy to a spare which is larger than the screen,a copy is made to the spare at the location in the spare that was visible when yu last viewed it. MERGE IN FRONT Merges that spare page in front of the current page. When the spare page is brought forward,all pixels matching its current background color will appear transparent,allowing images on the current page to show through. MERGE IN BACK Merges the spare page in back of the current page. When the spare page is put behind the current one,all pixels which match the current page's background color will appear transparent,allowing images on the spare page to show though. DELETE THIS PAGE If you no longer wish to have memory allocated for a second page,use the Delete this Page command to delete the current page(the one currently showing on the screen)and to deallocate the memory set aside for it. Be sure you have saved a copy of the picture you are deleting if you think you may need it later. When you select Delte this Page,DeluxePaint asks you to confirm the deletion,and then switches you to the other page. PAGE SIZE Displays the Page Size requester. You can select the page size(in pixels)you wish to work on. Standard is the normal Amiga display size for the selected resolution. SET PAGE SIZE TYPE IN SIZE: WIDTH: 320 HEIGHT:200 OR SELECT ONE: STANDARD 320 X 200 FULL PAGE 320 X 340 OVERSCAN 352 X 240 CANCEL OK FIGURE 9.19 Set Page Size requester Full Page gives you a full printed page image(8 1/2 by 11 inches)on most printers. Overscan gives you a full screen display,thereby letting you create picutes that fill the entire screen. This is particularly useful if you wish to videotape your images. In order to paint on the edges of a full video screen you need to scroll the image around using the cursor keys or the n key unless you set the Screen Format to Overscan(see Screen Format,below). Alternatively, you can view the entire screen by selecting Show Page(see below). Clicking one of the three settings automatically sets the height and width in the corresponding edit fields. You can also type in any other side you wish by clicking the appropriate edit field,Backspacing or Deleting over the existing value,and typing in the new size. Although DeluxePaint will recognize page sizes up to 1008 x 1024,you would need to reduce the number of colors in your palette to create a picture this large. SHOW PAGE(Keyboard Equivalent:Shift-S) Displays your current page in its entirety in a reduced format -- for example, in 640x400 page size in Lo-Res,it shows only every other pixel. Pressing any key or either mouse button returns you to the current page. SCREEN FORMAT This option displays the Screen Format requester. If you select a number of colors that will exceed your available memory,DeluxePaint will retain the format you have selected but use fewer colors. Be sure to save a copy of your current screen before changing screen formats,because once you have reduced the number of colors,the original color information is lost. In addition,note that changing formats eliminates most items from memory,including the Font Directory. The Screen Format requester gives you the following options: LO-RES:This is the default setting,giving you a pixel array of 320x200. Lo-Res lets you have up to 32 colors on the screen. DeluxePaint III also supports a special 64 color mode called Extra Halfbrite. The 64 color Extra-Halfbrite is special in that the first 32 colors in the palette are customizable,whereas the last 32 color in the palette are half intensities of the first 32 and are not directly changeable by the user. NOTE Not all Amiga 1000 computers support Extra Halfbrite. The easiest way to find out whether or not your computer supports this display mode is to try it. Choose Lo Res and 64 colors in the Choose Screen Format requester and look at the Palette(make sure the pointer is not in the Menu Bar or Toolbox). If the last 32 colors are the same as the first,your computer doesn't support Extra Halfbrite. MED-RES:Uses a pixel array of 640x200. Pixels in Med-Res format are tall and narrow compated to the other screen formats. This means that if you switch between Lo-Res and Med-Res,objects will become flattened or elongated because of the different pixel shape used by each format. You can compensate for this by using the Double Horiz and Double Vert options from the Brush menu(see below). Med-Res allows up to 16 colors. INTERLACE:Uses interlace techniques to double the number of horizontal lines. This produces a flicker that can be avoided by using a high persistence monitor. The interlace pixel is wider than it is tall,so moving from Lo-Res or Med-Res to Interlace will flatten images,while moving in the other direction will elongate them. Interlace format allows up to 64 colors on the screen as in the Lo-Res mode. HI-RES:Uses a pixel array of 640x400. Because Hi-Res also interlaces the horizontal lines,it is subject to the same flicker as the Interlace format. Pixel shape in Hi-Res format is the same as that of Lo-Res. Hi-Res format allows up to 16 colors on the screen. See Appendix A for more information on memory requirements. OVERSCAN:Puts DeluxePaint's display screen into overscan mode allowing you to view and edit your image in the border area around the normal viewable screen area. If the control panel or menu bar is showing when in overscan mode,the screen is shifted down and to the left to make sure you can see the controls. If you need to adjust the position of your screen,you can do so by holding down Ctrl and using the cursor keys. This saves you the trouble of exiting the program to adjust your screen through Preferences. The Screen Format requester also give you the option of retaining the same page size or changing your current screen to the new screen size. Example #1:SCREEN--If you start in 320x200 screen format and move to 640x400 format,your image will fill only one quarter of the screen. If you go from 640x 400 to 320x200,you will only retain the upper left quarter of your image. Example #2:KEEP SAME--If you start in 640x400 format and move to 320x200 format,you will retain the entire image but you will need to scroll the screen to see all of it. CHOOSE SCREEN FORMAT FORMAT: NUMBER OF COLORS: LO-RES 320X200 MED-RES 640X200 2 16 INTERLACE 320X400 4 32 HI-RES 640X400 8 64 OVERSCAN PAGE SIZE: SCREEN KEEP SAME CANCEL OK FIGURE 9.20 Choose Screen Format requester after program start up When you first boot DeluxePaint you are presented with a slightly diffeent version of the Screen Format requester. CHOOSE SCREEN FORMAT FORMAT: NUMBER OF COLORS: LO-RES 320X200 MED-RES 640X200 2 16 INTERLACE 320X400 4 32 HI-RES 640X400 8 64 OVERSCAN PROGRAM LOADING: SWAP LOAD ALL OK FIGURE 9.21 Choose Screen Format requester at program start up The basic difference is that you need to specify how the program is loaded. Clicking on the Load All button causes the entire DeluxePaint program to load into memory,while clicking on the Swap button causes parts of the DeluxePaint program to load into memory as they are needed leaving more memory available for image data. 193 ABOUT Displays the program's About requester showing the program version number,the author's name,the copyright notice,and extensive information about the amount of available memory and the size of your animation or animbrush. ABOUT DELUXE PAINT VERSION 3.01 CREATED BY DANIEL SILVA (c) 1985-1989 Electronic Arts Memory Chip Fast Available: 257408 / 2171968 Max Block: 255464 / 1632048 Anim Size: 0 Anim Brush Size: 0 OK FIGURE 9.22 The About Box QUIT Exits DeluxePaint BRUSH MENU LOAD Displays the Load Brush requester. This is identical in function to the Load Picture requester,except that you are loading brushes rather than pictures. When you load a brush that has a palette different from that of the current picture,the picture palette remains in place. Nonetheless,the brush palette information is loaded along with the brush;you can change to the brush's palette at any time by choosing Change Color>Use Brush Palette from the Picture menu. If you wish to revert to the previous palette,use Change Color>Restore Palette option. SAVE Displays the Save Brush requester. This requester is identical in function to the Save Picture requester(see above). Brushes are saved with their palettes, which includes color cycling information. RESTORE Restores your last custom brush if you chose an animbrush,built-in brush,or modified your custom brush using one of the options in the Brush menu. Restore does not reverse the effect of all brush manipulations in the Brush menu. Generally the options that cannot be reversed with restore can be reversed by choosing the option again. For example,Restore does not reverrsed by choosing the option again. For example,Restore does not reverse the Flip>Horiz option, but choosing Flip>Horiz again returns your brush to its previous state. SIZE The Size option lets you resize the current brush. The following secondary menu items are available under the Size option: STRETCH(Keyboard Equivalent:Shift-Z) Lets you stretch your brush in any direction to any size,larger or smaller than the original. To stretch your brush: Choose Size>Stretch from the Brush menu. Hold the left mouse button down and drag the mouse in any direction. Holding down the Shift key constrains the stretch operation so that your brush maintains the same aspect ratio(relative width and height) NOTE Stretching a brush uses up memory;if you try to stretch a brush to a size bigger than the available memory can accommodate,the brush will snap back to its original size. HALVE(Keyboard Equivalent:h) Reduces the size of your brush by 50% in both dimensions. DOUBLE(Keyboard Equivalent: Shift-H) Doubles the size of your brush in both dimensions,for a quadrupling of the total area. DOUBLE HORIZ Doubles the size of your brush in the horizontal dimension. This option is useful for reproportioning images that you created in Lo-Res and then moved to Med-Res. DOUBLE VERT Doubles the size of your brush in the vertical dimension. This option is useful for reprroportioning images that you created in Med-Res and then moved to Lo-Res. FLIP As its name implies,Flip lets you flip a brush about its x- or y-axis. You can perform this operation on animbrushes and all frames of the animated brush will flip. The following secondary menu items are available under the Flip option: HORIZ(Keyboard Equivalent:x) Flips the current brush about the horizontal or x-axis. VERT(Keyboard Equivalent:y) Flips the current brush about the vertical or y-axis. EDGE Modifies a one pixel boundary around the current brush using the current foreground color. Ideal for outlining text. TRIM Deletes a one pixel boundary around the current brush. ROTATE The following secondary menu items are available under the Rotate option: 90 DEGREES(Keyboard Equivalent:z) Rotates the current brush clockwise 90 degrees. ANY ANGLE Lets you rotate the current brush any number of degrees. Choose Rotate>Any Angle from the Brush menu. Hold the left button down and drag the rectangular outline about its bottom left corner. Release the button at the desired orientation. If you select this option more than once,your brush reverts to its original orientation before you rotate it again. SHEAR This option gives you controlled distortion of the current brush. When you choose Shear,the top part of the brush is anchored,and you can drag the bottom of the brush in either direction. CHANGE COLOR Use this option to modify the current brush colors. The following secondary menu items are available under the Change color option: BG->FG Changes all pixels in the brush that are in the current background color into the current foreground color. This provides an easy method of making a global color change--all instances of the background color in the brush are changed to the current foreground color. Because you can select any color in the brush as either the foreground or the background color at any time,you can make intricate color changes easily. This operation affects the brush colors only and does not affect the picture or the order of colors in the palette. BG<->FG Swaps the current background color in the brush with the current foreground. This is similar to the Bg->Fg option above,except that the change occurs in both directions. The change affects the brush colors only and does not affect the picture or the order of colors in the palette. REMAP Use Remap when you load a brush that uses a palette different from the current palette. Remap looks at the colors used in the brush and tries to find the closest fit within the current palette. This option is different from Use Brush Palette in that it does not change the picture palette. Instead it changes the palette locations the brush looks at for its colors. You can perform this operation on animbrushes and all frames of the animated brush will be remapped. CHANGE TRANSPARENCY Lets you change the transparency of the currently selected brush to the current background color. BEND Use this option to bend a brush horizontally or vertically: HORIZ Lets you bend the current brush in a horizontal direction. Choose Bend>Horiz from the Brush menu. With the left mouse button held down, drag the brush outline left or right until it is the desired shape. Release the mouse button. The vertical position of the cursor to the brush determines where the brush bends. VERT Lets you bend the current brush in a vertical direction. Choose Bend>Vertical from the Brush menu. With the left mouse button held down, drag the brush outline left or right until it is the desired shape. Release the mouse button. The horizontal position of the cursor to the brush determines where the brush bends. HANDLE Lets you specify whether the cursor holds a custom brush by its center(the default),by one of its four corners,or by an offset position you define. Use the keyboard commands to change your brush handle when you need to move your cursor without moving the brush. You can move the brush handle with the mouse button down this way. The three options in the submenu are as follows: CENTER(Keyboard Equivalent:Alt-s) Positions the arrow cursor at the center of the brush. CORNER(Keyboard Equivalent:Alt-x and Alt-y) Positions the arrow cursor at one of the four corners of the brush. If you have a custom brush currently held at the center,selecting Corner moves the arrow cursor to the lower right corner of the brush. If Corner is already selected and you select it again,the handle will move clockwise to the next corner position. The location of the arrow cursor the next time you pick up a brush depends on the direction you drag the mouse when you pick up the brush. If you drag down and to the right,the cursor will remain at the lower right. If you drag up and to the left,the cursor will move to the top left. The same principle applies if you drag down and to the left or up and to the right. In other words,the corner you drag to is the one the arrow cursor will attach to. Corner is particularly useful in perspective mode(see Effects menu,below). PLACE(Keyboard Equivalent:Alt-z) Lets you position the brush handle at an arbitrary x,y offset from the brush. To place the handle: Pick up your brush. Choose Handle>Place from the Brush menu. Hold down the mouse button and drag in any direction to offset the cursor from the brush. When you release the mouse button,the curso will hold the brush as you specified. MODE MENU The Mode menu contains options for different brush modes. These modes detemine which color or colors in your brush are used when you paint. Note that,with the exception of Shade,none of these modes affect the color used when you paint with the right mouse button. With the exception of Shade mode,the right mouse button always paints using the current background color in Color mode. The following secondary menu items are available under the Mode option: MATTE(Keyboard Equivalent:F1) Uses a custom brush in its original form. Those areas of the brush matching the background color in effect when the brush was first created are transparent. This is the default mode when you create a custom brush using the Brush Selector. COLOR(Keyboard Equivalent:F2) Uses the shape of the brush and fills it with the current foreground color. Those areas of the brush matching the background color in effect when the brush was created remain transparent. REPLC(Keyboard Equivalent:F3) Uses the brush in its original form(i.e.,Matte,see above),except that no colors are transparent. SMEAR(Keyboard Equivalent:F4) With Smear selected,you can smear any colors on the page by dragging a brush over them. This is like smearing a wet watercolor with your fingers,so the bigger the brush,the more pronounced the effect. Smear uses only the colors under the brush,and does not add any new colors. Current brush color is irrelevant. SHADE(Keyboard Equivalent:F5) With Shade selected,you can create subtle shading effects on those colors in your picture that are in a cycle range. Like Smear(above),Shade ignores the current brush color but uses its shape. By dragging the brush over those colors in your picture that are in a currently selected cycle range,you can paint over each color with the next color in the range. You can paint with the next-higher color by using the left mouse button,and the next-lower color by using the right mouse button. "Higher" and "lower" are relative to the color under the brush at the time. If the current foreground color is in a cycle range, Shade has no effect on colors outside that range. If the current foreground color is not in a cycle range,Shade treats the entire palette as a cycle range. (A range is selected if one of its members is selected as the foreground color. A color that is a member of two ranges selects the first of those two ranges.) BLEND(Keyboard Equivalent:F6) Like Smear,above,Blend affects the colors under the brush by running them together. Unlike Smear,however,Blend uses additional shades by averaging the blended colors,whereas Smear uses only the colors under the brush. Thus,when you Blend two shades by painting over them,you are selecting a third shade from the palette,the closest one the program can find to the average of the two original shades. If you select a foreground color outside of a range,Blend only affects those colors on the screen that are within that range. CYCLE(Keyboard Equivalent:F7) Uses the current brush shape and cycles through all the colors in the currently selected range as you draw. A range is selected if one of its members is selected. If a color is a membe of two ranges,selecting it selects the first of those two ranges. If your current brush color is not within a cycle range,it paints with that color only. Use MultiCycle(in the Prefs menu)to achieve the same effect with a multicolored brush,where each color in the brush cycles through its range independently of the others. SMOOTH(Keyboard Equivalent:F8) Reduces the contrast between two adjoining areas. DeluxePaint finds colors in the palette between the two bordering colors and paints the boundary in intermediate shades. Smooth looks at the current palette and finds the colors closest to the ones under the brush. Thus if the palette contains a wide selection of colors close to the ones under the brush(e.g.,the selection of greys in the default palette),it will have more colors to draw from to create its weighted averages. Useful for creating airbrush effects by smoothing out contrasting boundaries,or for eliminating jagged edges. TINT Replaces the hue and saturation of the affected pixels with the current color but leaves the value of the screen pixels unaffected. This option is available only with built-in brushes. HBRITE This mode is only available if you are using 64 colors(Extra Halfbrite mode). When you are in HBrite mode,painting with the left mouse button darkens colors on your painting to their halfbrite equivalent;painting with the right button lightens colors that are halfbrite. This mode is especially useful in pictures with shadow and highlight effects. ANIM MENU LOAD Displays the Load Anim requester. This requester works the same as the Load Picture requester described earlier in this chapter. When you Load an animation,the loaded animation replaces the one currently in memory. When you Append an animation,the appended animation is added to the end of your current animation. It is also possible to load individual pictures into the frames of your animation using the Load Picture requeste. See Load in the Picture menu for information about loading pictures into your animation. If you click the left mouse button as DeluxePaint begins to load your animation,the palette temporarily changes to all greys so that you don't see the animation frames loading. This is useful if you are showing animations on your Amiga and don't want your audience to see the frames before you load them. SAVE Displays the Save Anim requester which is similar to the Save Picture requester described above. This requester works the same as the Save Picture requester described earlier in this chapter. MOVE... Displays the Move requester. Use this requester to define a path along which your brush is painted in 3D,either on a single frame,or while stepping through an animation sequence. To use the Move Requester: Stamp your brush on the screen at the starting position you want. Choose Move from the Anim menu. Enter the Move and Angle settings you want. Set the Count edit field to the number of frames over which you want to animate the brush. Select the Direction of your Move and Record. Select any other settings that apply to your animation. Click Draw to paint the animation with the settings you specified. MOVE X Y Z DIST: 0 0 0 BRUSH ANGLE: 0 0 0 BRUSH CLEAR GO BACK CYCLIC EASE-OUT: O DIRECTION: EASE-IN: O MOVE RECORD COUNT: 10 PREVIEW TRAILS FILL DRAW CANCEL EXIT FIGURE 9.23 The Move requester The Move requester presents the following settings: MOVE:The Move edit fields let you specify the total distance that the brush will move along the X,Y,and Z axes in your animation. You can set the brush to move along the Brush axes or the Screen axes by using the button to the right of the Move edit fields. ANGLE:The Angle edit fields let you specify the total angle,in degrees,that the brush will be rotated about the X,Y,and Z axes. You can set the brush to rotate around the Brush axes or the Screen axes by using the button to the right of the Angle edit fields. The default setting is Brush,in which case the rotation is always based on the brush coordinate system. Note that the brush coordinate system will change during the course of a Move if you are rotating on more than one axis. If you set this option to Screen(non-Brush),any angle rotation takes place along the current axes of the screen coordinate system. The "Screen" rotation system is an Euler(pronounced oiler)system and the order of rotation is always X,Y,and Z. When you rotate on more than one angle,or when the brush has been rotated previously,the rotations produced by the Screen angle system are not always around the azes that are used for the Distance moves along the Screen azes. Generally it is best to think of the Screen angle rotations as "non-Brush" rather than Screen. NOTE All rotations occur around the brush handle. If you want your brush to appear as though it is orbiting around a point away from the brush,you would want to offset the handle from the brush. BRUSH:Use these buttons to select whether the Dist and Angle movements are relative to the brush's coordinate system(on)or to the screen coordinate system (off). EASE-OUT:Use this edit field to set the number of frames over which you want the brush motion to gradually accelerate. EASE-IN:Use this edit field to set the number of frames over which you want the brush motion to gradually decelerate. COUNT:Use this edit field to set the number of times the brush is painted to complete the total movement and rotation as specified by the move and angle edit fields. CLEAR:Click this button to zero out all of the Move and Angle numbers. GO BACK:Click this button to restore the starting position of the brush for the next movement to the last place you manually clicked it down. CYCLIC:Turn this button on if you are creating an animation that is cyclic(that is,one that starts and ends at the same position.) For example,if you have 10 frames,and you want a brush to rotate 360 degrees over the 10 frames to make it look as though it is spinning when you play the animation,you would turn Cyclic on. DeluxePaint III would calculate the rotation to end on the 1th frame(which in this case would be the 1st frame). The result is that the brush is not rotated to a full 360 degrees on Frame 10. Instead,the brush reaches 360 degrees on Frame 1. DeluxePaint doesn't paint the brush on the last frame,since it's position would normally be the same as your original frame,but it does move forward to that frame and positions the brush in the event that you want to click it down. DIRECTION:The buttons in the Direction area of the requester control the direction of your move and the order in which the frames of the animation are painted. MOVE lets you choose to have a move drawn in one of two ways: GO FROM starts the movement of the bush from the point where you stamped your brush(indicated by the large dot)and paints forward. COME TO starts the animation at an earlier frame and moves the brush forward to the point where you stamped your brush. RECORD lets you choose the order in which the frames of the brush move are painted. These buttons are available only if you have more than one animation frame. FORWARD paints the move by stepping forward from the point where you stamped your brush. This is the default setting and the one you will use most often. IN PLACE paints all of the move on the current frame. BACKWARD paints the move in reverse order by advancing to the last frame and painting backwards. This option is useful when you are using the Trails button. PREVIEW:Click this button to view the move you have set up in "wire-frame" mode. When the preview is complete,or when you hit the space bar to stop it, you are returned to the Move requester. TRAILS:This button is available only if you have more than one animation frame allocated. Clicking this button is like clicking on the Draw button except on each frame you get the sum total of all of the draws up to this point. The net effect is that of leaving "trails" of the brush of as ut moves. FILL:This button works like draw,except that when you click it,the move you specified is used to draw a filled perspective plane based on the rotation of the current brush. DRAW:Click this button to execute the move that you have specified,causing the brush to be drawn into animation sequence. CANCEL:Click on this button to restore any settings that have been changed and exit this requester. EXIT:Click on this button to exit the requester and keep all of the settings that you have entered. FRAMES This option presents a submenu of options for manipulating the frames in your animation. The following options are available under the Frames submenu: ADD FRAME Adds an animation frame after the current frame,copies the contents of the current frame to it,and makes this new frame the current one. SET #.. Displays the Set Frame Count requester. DeluxePaint will try to allocate as many frames as are requested. If there is not enough memory to allocate the requested number of frames,DeluxePaint will allocate as many as memory will allow. This requester works as though you chose Add Frame or Delete Frame several times. This means that you can add several frames to the middle of your animation by stepping to the frame you want to add frames after and changing the number of frames you want to add. You can delete several frames from any point in your animation by stepping to the first frame you want to delete and changing the number of frames to the current count minus the number of frames you want to delete. For example,if you have 100 frames and you want to delete frames 41 to 50,step to frame 41 and set the number of frames to 90. SET FRAME COUNT COUNT: 0 CANCEL OK FIGURE 9.24 Set Frame Count requester COPY TO ALL Copies the picture in the current frame to all of the animation frames. DELETE FRAME Deletes the current frame and makes the following frame the current frame unless you are already at the last frame. To delete frames at the end of the animation sequence,position to the last frame and then execute Delete frame as many times as the number of frames you want to discard. DELETE ALL Deletes all of the animation frames. CONTROL The Control option displays a submenu of options for moving around in your animation frames and for playing the animation. The following options are available under the Control submenu: SET RATE.. This option displays the Set frames per second requester. You can set the initial frames-per-second rate by entering a number in the edit field and clicking OK. If you use the left and right arrow(cursor)keys to slow down or speed up the play of your animation,the number in this requester also changes. SET RANGE.. Displays the Set Play Range requester. You can set the play range to play any range of frames in your animation or to play all frames in your animation. Note that the From number in your range must be smaller than the to number for the range to play correctly. The range setting is used by the Play Once and Ping Pong options in the Control submenu,but Play is not affected. This option is especially useful if you are editing a small section of a large animation. You can edit the frames and play only the frames you are editing to see your changes. PREVIOUS Steps the current frame to the previous frame in the animation sequence. If the current frame is the first frame,the position is set to the last frame. NEXT FRAME Steps the current frame to the next frame in the animation sequence. If the current frame is the last frame,the position is set to the first frame. GO TO.. Displays the Go to Frame requester. This requester lets you position the current frame to any of the available animation frames. GO TO FRAME NUMBER: 1 CANCEL OK FIGURE 9.25 The Go to Frame requester PLAY Plays the animation. The animation sequence will continue cycling until the space bar is pressed.(You can reverse the direction of playback by pressing r on the keyboard while the animation is playing.) PLAY ONCE Plays the animation sequence once through from Frame 1 to the last frame. PING-PONG Plays the animation sequence continuously as in Play above,but plays the sequence forward then backward then forward and so on. 208 ANIMBRUSH An animbrush is a special type of brush that has more than one frame associated with it. The following options are available under the Animbrush submenu: LOAD.. Displays the Load Animbrush requester. This requester is identical in function to the Load Picture or Load Brush requester described earlier in this chapter, except that you are loading an animbrush. See,Load in the Picture and Brush menus. When you load an animbrush that has a palette different from that of the current picture,the picture palette remains in place. Nonetheless,the brush palette information is loaded along with the brush;you can change to the brush's palette at any time by choosing Change Color>Use Brush Palette from the Picture menu. SAVE.. Displays the Save Animbrush requester. This requester is identical in function to the Save Brush requester described earlier in this chapter. PICK UP Selecting this menu option is the same as selecting the rectangular brush capture tool except the animbrush you capture will have as many "frames" as the current number of frames in the animation sequence. When you paint with an animbrush,the brush cycles through its frames automatically as you paint. The brush will continuously cycle on the current animation frame unless you hold down the left Amiga key(the Commodore key on Amiga 500 and 2000)when you press the mouse button down,in which case the brush will paint each of its frames separately into each of the animation sequence frames. You can use an animbrush with any painting tool,just as you would use any custom brush. SETTINGS.. This menu option displays the Animbrush Settings requester. You use this requester to control the animbrush. NUMBER OF CELS shows you how many cels of animation are in your animbrush. DURATION lets you set the number of frames it takes the animbrush to move completely through its cels. You can also think of this as the rate at which the animbrush transforms. For example,if your brush has 10 cels and you set duration to 20,your brush will stamp each of its cels twice before flipping to the next cel. CURRENT lets you type in the value for the brush cel you want to start with. This is very useful if you want to continue painting from a particular cel of your brush. You can also step backward and forward though the cels of your animbrush by using the 7 and 8 keys along the top of the keyboard. Shift-7 steps to the first cel,and Shift-8 steps you to the last cel. DIRECTION gives you options of flipping forward,flipping backward,or ping- ponging through the cels of your animbrush as you paint. USE Make the last Animbrush "picked up" the current brush. This allows you to pick up an animbrush,then pick up a regular brush,and then return to your animbrush. You can also restore your animbrush by clicking the Brush Selector with the right mouse button;this toggles between your standard custom brush and your animbrush. FREE Releases the memory used by the current Animbrush. Note that you cannot get the brush back once you free it!(If at any time you think you are low on memory, before you throw away brushes or frames,press Ctrl-a;this displays a requester with information about available memory.) METHOD The following two submenu options of the Method menu are used to specify the "memory model" of the animation sequence frames. COMPRESSED The Compressed Method,while a little more complex than the Expanded Method, offers the advantage of permitting many more animation frames in memory at one time. The compressed memory model only needs enough memory to store the differences between frames. While this model allows for more frames,it has a couple of disadvantages:it is slower than the expanded methode while animpinting,loading and saving are slower,and memory tends to fragment,makeing it easy to run out of memory. EXPANDED The Expanded Method represents the simplest of the two memory models where all of the memory for each animation frame is allocated. If you are in low resolution mode,320x200,and you have 10 animation frames,then you would need enough memory to hold 10 complete 320x200 images. Two advantages of this method are that the frame flipping for animpainting is very smooth,and you will not run out of memory to add an element to your animation within the allocated frames. EFFECT MENU The Effect menu lets you create stencils,"freeze"the background,and define planes for the purposes of perspective drawing. STENCIL You create a stencil of an image by "locking" the colors that comprise that image. This allows you tp paint around the image without painting on it,as though it were protected by a stencil or frisket. Additionally,a stencil will apply to the brush when it is captured. Whatever colors in the brush which were locked when the stencil was made become transparent in the brush. MAKE..(Keyboard Equivalent:~,directly below the ESC key) This displays the Make Stencil requester. You can reposition the requester anywhere on the sceen by dragging it by the bar at its top. To make a stencil: Click the colors to use in creating the stencil with the left mouse button. You can select colors by clicking in the palette display in the requester or by clicking the colors on-screen(including the onscreen palette). When you have clicked all the colors you want to protect,click Make. The colors you select define a mask that protects an area from being painted. The shape of the stencil is what is created and saved,not the color information,which means you can change the colors of a "stenciled" shape,and still retain the stencil. If you have several animation frames,DeluxePaint automatically remakes the stencil as you move from one frame to the next,either manually or while using the Move requester. CLEAR clears the current color selections in the requester. INVERT inverts the current color selections. This is useful if you want to mask more colors than you want to leave unmasked. When you have a stencil active,an "S" appears in the Menu Bar. MAKE STENCIL LOCKED: CLEAR INVERT MAKE CANCEL FIGURE 9.26 Make Stencil requester REMAKE When you have a stencil active and you apply colors to your picture,the colors you apply are not protected,even though they may be locked in the Make Stencil requester. You can lock newly-applied colors by bringing up the Make Stencil requester and clicking Make,or by selecting Remake from the Stencil submenu. NOTE If you have several animation frames and you make a stencil,DeluxePaint automatically remakes the stencil as you move from one screen to the next. LOCK FG The Make Stencil requester lets you create stencils based on colors in the palette. By locking a color,you make it impossible to paint on that color, wherever it may be on the page. By using a combination of Fix Background(see below)and Lock FG,however,you can define a stencil by area rather than color. When you select Lock FG,you define as a stencil those areas on the page that you have painted since fixing the background,regardless of the color of those areas. REVERSE Has the same effect as clicking Invert in the Make Stencil requester(see Make, above). ON/OFF(Keyboard Equivalent:`,directly below the ESC key) Toggles the stencil on and off. This maintains the stencil but turns it off temporarily so you can paint on the protected colors. FREE Creating a stencil uses memory,even though you may have it turned off(see On/Off,above). Free deletes the stencil and deallocates the memory it was using. LOAD.. Stencils can be loaded as separate items. They are full screen only,and can be loaded only to the position they occupied when they were created. In other words,you cannot create a page larger than screen size and load the stencil into the middle of the page. The Load requester is identical to all other Load requesters(see Load in the Picture menu,earlier in this chapter). SAVE.. You can save stencils just as you can any other file,such as pictures or brushes. The Save requester for stencils is identical to those for other types of files(see Save in the Picture menu,earlier in this chapter). BACKGROUND FIX Fixes the background by "locking" the current picture,while allowing you to draw on top of it. You can erase any paint you have applied since fixing the background by clicking CLR or by painting with the right button,without fear of losing any of the background. Fixing the background uses additional memory. Note that when the background is fixed you cannot pick up any colors from that background. FREE This "unlocks" the background,so that clicking CLR will clear the entire picture. It also frees up the memory that was allocated to saving the background. PERSPECTIVE The Perspective submenu contains options for manipulating a brush in three dimensions. The following is a summary of the Perspective submenu: DO(Keyboard Equivalent:Enter) Puts you into perspective mode. Your brush is represented by a four-cell matrix which you can manipulate through keypad commands(listed later in this section). The amount of rotation for each of the three axes x,y,and z is given in degrees at the right-hand side of the menu bar. The center of perspective(ss Center, below)is indicated by a cross-hair. You can paint an image of the rotated brush at any time by clicking the left mouse button. TO EXIT PERSPECTIVE MODE,click one of the drawing tools,such as the continuous or dotted line tool. FILLSCREEN(Keyboard Equivalent:Keypad Minus) Fills the screen with the current brush,in its current state of rotation in 3D. The entire brush size(not just the opaque part)is the default size for the Perspective Fill pattern. RESET(Keyboard Equivalent:Keypad 0) Resets the brush to its original state before rotation,and returns all of the settings in the Perspective Settings requester to their defaults(see Settings, below). CENTER(Keyboard Equivalent:Keypad.Period) Allows you to set the perspective center of horizon in your perspective "landscape." When you select Center,your cursor changes into a large cross-hair. The smaller,stationary cross-hair on the screen indicates the existing center. Move the large cross-hair to the new center you want and click either mouse button. Once you have set the perspective center,the position of the unrotated brush relative to that center determines the position of the perspective plane when you rotate the brush. The greater the distance above or below perspecitve center,the less pronounced the perspective effect. SETTINGS Displays the Persepective requester. When you are in Perspective mode,you can also display this requester by clicking the Grid tool with the right mouse button. PERSEPECTIVE X Y Z GRID: 32 32 32 FROM BRUSH ANGLE STEP: 90 TYPE: SCREEN BRUSH ANTI-ALIAS: NONE LOW HIGH DISPLAY: ANGLE POS CANCEL OK FIGURE 9.27 Perspective requester 215 The following options are available: GRID:You can use these edit fields to set the dimensions for a grid in three- dimensional space. When you first open the requester,the numbers in these fields correspond to the dimensions of your brush;the Z dimension automatically takes the same value as the Y dimension. It is important to remember that the entire brush size(not just the opaque part)is the default size for Perspective Grid and Perspective Fill. FROM BRUSH Clicking this button sets the X and Y grid values to correspond to the width and height of the brush. This is the quickest way to restore the perspective grid settings to the same dimensions as your brush without affecting any other settings. ANGLE STEP specifies the rotation increment used in conjunction with the Shift key and the appropriate keyboard rotation key(see Perspective Rotations,later in this section). This value defaults to 90. SCREEN,the default mode,uses the screen coordinate system when rotating the brush on the x,y,and z axes.(If you are familiar with coordinate systems,you will know this coordinate system as the Euler method,which measures all three angles of rotation from absolute zero.) BRUSH,rotates the brush relative to the current brush coordinate system. ANTI-ALIAS:Anti-aliasing smooths the jagged lines in a brush that result from rotating or shrinking it in Perspective mode. You'll get better perspective anti-aliasing if the palette contains colors in-between(as orange is between red and yellow)those at the edges beging anti-aliased. NONE,LOW and HIGH set the level of anti-aliasing used on your brush when you paint in Perspective mode. None is the default setting and applies no anti-aliasing. Low lets you eliminate some of the jagged outline on your perspective brush. The cost of removing jagged lines is painting spped,but it is still faster than smoothing out an image by hand. To use anti-aliasing,select either Low or High(see below)before you lay down the brush image. Anti-aliasing is most effective when you have reduced the size of your original brush(for example,by moving it back along the z-axis). Anti-aliasing in the High setting can be very slow if your brush or fill area is large. DISPLAY:The ANGLE and POS buttons lets you choose whether the menu bar displays the angles of rotation or the position of the brush in three dimensional space. Note that if you have Coords in the Prefs menu turned on,the menu bar shows two dimensional coordinates;be sure to turn Coords off if you want to see three dimensional coordinates. PERSPECTIVE ROTATIONS All perspective rotations are controlled through the keypad on your keyboard. -1 +1 RESET X ROTATIONS 7 8 9 Y ROTATIONS 4 5 6 Z ROTATIONS 1 2 3 RESET ALL ROTATIONS 0 PLACE CENTER . FILL SCREEN - FIGURE 9.28 Perspective rotation and settings using the keypad -ANGLE +ANGLE FIX STEP STEP AXIS X ROTATIONS 7 8 9 Y ROTATIONS 4 5 6 Z ROTATIONS 1 2 3 REST ALL ROTATIONS 0 PLACE CENTER . FILL SCREEN - FIGURE 9.29 Perspective rotation and settings using Shift with the keypad Pressing Keypad 0 resets all three axes to zero and fixes the z-axis(see below),but retains the apparent distance settings. Pressing Keypad 0 in conjunction with the Shift key resets all perspective values to the default (boot-up)state,including resetting the perspective center. OTHER PERSPECTIVE KEYBOARD COMMANDS Ctrl temporarily fixes the Y axis so that you can move the brush forward or backward in 3D space by moving the mouse forward or backward. The; and ' keys move the brush plane forward or back along its fixed axis(see below)without changing its orientation,moving it in a direction perpendicular to the brush plane. This is the same effect described in the above discussion on brush position prior to rotation. Thus,with the z-axis fixed,brush position relative to the perspective center at the moment of rotation determines the brush's distance above or below eye level. You can achieve the same effect after the brush is rotated by using the ; and ' keys move it forward or back along its z-axis. Pressing these keys with the Shift key held down results in larger increments of movement. In addition,you can modify the apparent distance from the observer by pressing the < and > keys(i.e.,the Shifted "," and "." keys). Thus,when the apparent distance is great,the perspective foreshortening is at a minimum,becoming greater as apparent distance decreases. FIXING AXES:Whenever you start in perspective mode,the z-axis(the one perpendicular to the screen)is "fixed,"that is,the mouse does not move the brush through that axis. You can selectively fix any axis,as follows: To fix the x-axis,press Shift-Keypad 9 To fix the y-axis,press Shift-Keypad 6 To fix the z-axis,press Shift-Keypad 3 As noted above,you can move along the axis that is currently fixed by using the Shifted or un-Shifted ; and ' keys(use the Shifted keys for larger increments). You can also temporarily fix the Y axis by holding down the Ctrl key. PREFS MENU The Prefs menu contains a list of options that you can turn on or off to suit your working habits. When you choose one of these options,a star appears to the left of the option to indicate that it is on. Choosing the option again turns the option off and removes the star. When you start DeluxePaint for the first time,only the AutoGrid option is on. CUSTOMIZING YOUR PREFS MENU If you want,you can customize your working copy of the DeluxePaint program to start with the preference settings set the way you like them. For example,you might like to have Coords turned on automatically when you start the program. To customize the preferences,you use the Tool Types feature of Info in the Amiga Workbench. Here's how: Boot your Amiga. Insert your working copy of the program disk. Select the DeluxePaint program icon. Choose Info from the Workbench menu. The above steps produce the Info requester. In the bottom half of this requester you'll see a field for Tool Types with arrows for scrolling and ADD or DEL buttons. To turn a preference option on: Click the ADD button. Type the name of the preference you want to turn on.(Type it exactly as it appears in the Prefs menu.)Press Return. To turn a preference option off,display that preference name in the edit field by clicking the up or down arrow to the left and click DEL. To exit the Info requester and save your changes,click Save in the lower left corner of the requester. COORDS(Keyboard Equivalent: |,directly below the F10 key) This option turns on the coordinate display in the upper right-hand portion of the Menu Bar. Moving the mouse without holding a button down displays the current position of the cursor,with the origin(0,0)set to the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Pressing and holding down either mouse button temporarily resets the origin to the current cursor position and displays the displacement value from that temporary origin as you move around the screen. The readout is scaled in pixels. FAST FB Fast feedback. Use this when working with large or complicated brushes while using the line or unfilled shape tools. Fast FB lets you draw your lines or shapes using the smallest(one-pixel)brush for feedback,and then completes the design using the currently selected brush. This increases response speed while you are drawing,but does not affect the final image. Toggle Fast FB off by selecting it a second time. MULTICYCLE Use this in conjunction with the Cycle paint mode in the Mode menu(see above). When MultiCycle is turned off(the default state),using the Cycle paint mode with a multicolored brush treats the brush as though it were a single color(the current foreground color). With MultiCycle turned on,painting with a multicolored brush in Cycle mode cycles each color in the brush,provided the color is in a cycle range. BE SQUARE Because the Amiga's pixels are not perfectly square,circles and squares drawn with the shape tools are not perfectly round or square. If you wish to draw "true" circles or squares,select Be Square from the Prefs menu. This will square all the built-in brushes,the appropriate shape tools,and symmetry. Be Square does not square gridding or perspective,and should be turned off in those modes. WORKBENCH Toggles the workbench off and on. EXCLBRUSH If you pick up a brush with Excl Brush(and the Grid)selected,you will exclude a one-pixel border on the right and bottom edges of your brush(see Figure 9.30). This is useful if your brush has a colored border around it and you want to use the brush to create a pattern fill or perspective fill(using the Fill Type requester). When DeluxePaint creates your pattern,the border will be uniform throughout instead of being twice as wide where one copy of the brush is placed next to another. NOTE Excl Brush has no effect on brush pick-up when the Grid is off. AUTOTRANSP Modifies the brush pickup so that it automatically determines the transparent color by looking at the corners of the capture rectangle or the points of the polygon to see if they are the same color. If the four corners are the same color,that color becomes the transparent color,otherwise the current background color remains the transparent color. NO ICONS When NoIcons is on,your files are saved with the icon "info" files. This option is useful if you don't ever expect to launch an application by double-clicking on a picture file. Saving without the icons is a good way to save space on your disk. AUTOGRID When AutoGrid is on,the perspective grid is automatically resized to match your custom brush when you load or pick up a custom brush. This is the same as if you had clicked From Brush in the Perspective requester. When AutoGrid is off,the perspective grid is not automatically resized. Note that this option affects only the grid in Perspective,not the standard grid.